Review: Legacy of a Dreamer

Legacy of a Dreamer

By:  Allie Jean

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Rating: 4/5 Cogs

Blurb:

Chantal Breelan is a ward of the state, living under the care of a woman who is cold and heartless. Her past is a mystery, and her future is even more uncertain. She can’t recall why she had been taken from her parents and so she’s left with nothing but an empty hole where her childhood should have been. When she awakens from her nightmares, she’s left with terrible, violent images, as well as a boy whose face is oddly familiar, yet can’t be placed.

Scared and alone, Chantal begins to confide in an imaginary friend – a shadow in the shape of a man who stands in the corner of her room. She is comforted when she believes he listens to her.

On her eighteenth birthday, Chantal is forced to leave her foster home. She moves to New York City, but the start of her new life doesn’t begin as smoothly as she’d hoped. In this environment, she faces a whole new set of challenges.

One night at a subway station, Chantal meets a young boy who runs away from her, and she’s compelled to follow him down into the tunnels. But this Rabbit Hole reveals a world where reality is a nightmare. Her dreams are clues to her future, and her life becomes twisted and dangerous when she learns that things that go bump in the night are not just in fairy tales and childhood stories.

 Review:

This is a memorizing and quick read that I found extremely easy to lose myself in.  Chantal's transformation from her life of forced labor at a foster home to a life of intrigue, mystery and pain is heartbreaking, but at the same time, it seems liberating for her.  Chantal is a strong and capable young woman who has a bit of a crutch, depending on the shadow man in the corner of her room.  When she realizes that the shadow man isn't just a figment of a crazy imagination, she's thrown into a world of chaos.  This chaos makes her flee her new apartment and run for her life to prevent evil from finding her purity and grace.

The dream sequences in this story are completely heinous.  There were points where I had trouble reading them, they were so graphic and terrifying - and I'm a horror movie buff!  There was just something so sinister and undefined in these nightmares, that it made it fairly easy for me to understand Chantal's, sometimes rough, exterior.  I do have to admit though, one of my favourite parts of the entire book is when she socks a guy for groping her backside.  Way to go, lady!  Any girl that has no problem defending herself from a pervert is a great heroine in my eyes!

From the moment Nick becomes more than a shadow, this story is action packed.  The two are constantly on the run, doing everything they can to keep Chantal away from the evil that seeks her.  There were a few parts of the paranormal aspect that I had a bit of confusion with, but I believe due to the lack of details in these parts that it's more than likely something I'm not supposed to fully understand until later in the series.  Hopefully I have a chance to read more soon, because this series is off to a fantastic start.

This is a great paranormal YA that I recommend picking up!

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